Court paves way for Google ‘underworld’ defamation case

A court cleared the way for a rare defamation action against Google on Wednesday after a man claimed the global internet giant published material linking him to Australia’s criminal underworld.

Entertainment promoter Milorad Trkulja was shot in the back at a Melbourne restaurant in a 2004 crime that was never solved.

In 2012, Google was ordered to pay Aus$200,000 (US$150,000) in damages to Trkulja, who claimed he was defamed by material that implied he was a major crime figure and had been the target of a professional hit.

Trkulja then launched further proceedings against the online behemoth relating to images and text that he said continued to link him to underworld figures, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

A Victorian state court ruled in favour of Google, but Australia’s High Court has now upheld an appeal by Trkulja, paving the way for his defamation action.

At least some search results for Trkulja “had the capacity to convey… that the appellant was somehow associated with the Melbourne criminal underworld”, the court said.

Google has denied Trkulja’s allegations, saying it had innocently disseminated material published by others.

“We will continue to defend the claim,” a Google spokesperson said Wednesday, declining to comment further as the case was ongoing.

In the 2012 decision, a jury ruled Google had failed to act when Trkulja’s lawyers wrote to them demanding action over the “grossly defamatory” content.

Trkulja had argued his reputation was critical to his work as a promoter and had been seriously damaged by the defamatory material.

There has been legal debate in Australia about whether search engines like Google can be considered “publishers” under Australian defamation law, even if they did not create the content.

Previous court rulings have given conflicting views, but judges in Australia and abroad have ruled against the search engine on several occasions.

Billionaire Hong Kong tycoon Albert Yeung brought a libel suit against Google in 2012 over search results that he said linked him to the territory’s criminal triad gangs.

Google settled with British businessman Daniel Hegglin in 2015 after the former Morgan Stanley banker alleged that defamatory search results described him as a paedophile and murderer, according to the BBC.